


Must Be A Nightmare

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, Happy Ending, Implied Character Death, M/M, Nightmares, but don't worry, falling, it's just a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 08:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock doesn’t <em>dream</em>. At least not as vivid as this. So why does he find himself in a dark forest for no reason? Blood on his hands? And a barn owl? What does it mean? And where is it going?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Must Be A Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a part of another story, but what was supposed to be a paragraph, somehow turned into 10 pages. So I made it an individual story instead. Enjoy!

As soon as the dream starts, Sherlock can tell that he is, in fact, dreaming.

The colors are extra rich, contrasted and emphasized with deep black shadows. Thick, gnarled, black trees surround him, some with dark green leaves and vines draped carelessly across the branches, others dead and void of life, a pond of muddy water not too far in the distance, long grass and damp dirt beneath his feet.

It's night, and it is dark, the only light coming from one giant orb in the sky, a full moon, obscured by pale black clouds. There are no stars.

This is how he can tell that he’s dreaming, because 1) What reason would he have to be in this strange, almost fantasy-like forest? 2) Even if he had a reason to be here, why would be here at night? Especially without any sort of equipment, and 3) Even if he had a reason to be here, and had a reason to be here at night, why would he be here alone?

Sherlock knew well enough not to wander through a strange, unknown place without some sort of backup (Ok, true, when he was in London, he had no problem with doing that, but that’s because it was London and he knew London. This, however, was not London.)

And even though he knows he’s dreaming, he can’t find that he can control the dream like most people claim they can after the realization. Lucid dreaming is what it’s called. Sherlock had never been able to lucid dream (in fact he hardly ever dreams at all), and knowing that this was all just in his head wasn’t a comfort. In fact, it kind of made it worse. His mind was capable of some scary things.

He looks down at his own hands, shrouded in shadows, and can faintly see by the moonlight some sort of scratches marring his skin up to his forearms. No, wait. Not scratches. Just blood. Not his own. He wipes it off until his hands are clean.

_Wonder what that means…_

This was strange. Very strange. Very, very strange. Sherlock didn’t dream like this. Normal sleep usually consisted of some sort of thinking instead of dreaming, perhaps formulas or words or an experiment he had been working on floating around in his head. If he slept soundly, like when he crashed after a long case, his mind was usually blank and dreamless as it recuperated. If he did dream, it was usually about monotonous daily tasks, like reading (without actually seeing the words on the page. He wasn’t actually reading in these dreams, only mimicking the repetitive act) or watching television (again, without seeing the pictures on the screen) or eating a meal at the table with John (everything in the dream blurred, the food, the silverware, the table, except for John’s face. John was always crystal clear in his mind).

This level of creativity in this dream; the very visible, very non-blurred trees, sharp and vibrant; the black, damp dirt beneath his feet, soft and wet against his shoes; the tall grass itching at the back of his legs; the buzz of some sort of insect, one that Sherlock quickly identifies as _Cicadetta montana_ (the New Forest Cicada); the eerie croak of a frog, slow, throaty, almost human-like; the damp, humid air sticking against his skin and prompting the hairs on his exposed arms to stand on end; the overbearing musk of the swamp clogging his nostrils; it’s all just too much.

Sherlock has NEVER had a dream so vivid, and never in such a strange place.

A noise startles him into twirling around, and he chides himself for such illogical fear over nothing more than the hoot of a _Tyto alba_ , a common barn owl. His eyes roam up the thick, black, knotted trunk of the trees to the gnarled, black branches twisting and entangling through the air.

A pale, white face stares back at him with black eyes. It appears to be floating, even though Sherlock knows its body is there somewhere beneath it, perched securely with talons digging into black bark. Somehow, that fact doesn’t make it any less creepy.

In the uncharacteristically hot and humid air, Sherlock begins to sweat, a drop trailing down the side of his forehead.

Another hoot and Sherlock clenches his fists as he involuntarily jumps. The owl’s head cocks and twists as it studies him, it hops along the branch, face seemingly bobbing on air, black, void eyes acting as empty abysses boring directly through him.

Obviously his mind is trying to tell him something. There’s something important about this owl. There was something about the blood. There’s something important about this unusual dream.

But Sherlock can’t seem to place what it is.

So he just goes along with it in hopes that he’ll eventually get an answer.

“Who are you?” Sherlock asks the bird, misjudging the strength of his own voice, and cringing at the painfully loud sound as it breaks the air. The frog chirps in surprise and falls quiet, and the cicadas momentarily pause their noise, the now deafening silence grating on Sherlock’s nerves. After a beat, they resume their incessant buzzing and the frog picks up its slow croak again. 

Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel as weird talking to a dream bird than he probably should.

The bird doesn’t reply. Simply hops to another branch and watches him, the penetrating gaze of black eyes prickling Sherlock’s skin with uneasiness.

“Are you here for a reason?” Sherlock continues the questioning, his voice lower and more appropriate for the noise level now. Another drop of sweat slides down his eyebrow and the salt stings his eyes. He wipes it away hastily, trying to ignore the now uncomfortable wetness sticking to the inside of his shirt, darting a glance to the pond beside him, wondering if the warm, swampy water could possibly give any comfort. Probably not.

Again, the bird doesn’t reply, hopping to another branch as it continues its scrutiny.

“What am I supposed to do?” Sherlock asks a bit more loudly, annoyed at not understanding. The owl flaps it wings. There’s a skip in the cicadas’ buzz, but then it continues unfazed. The frog changes its beat to quick ribbits.

And Sherlock is already sick and tired of this dream. What was the point??

He tries to force himself awake. It doesn’t work.

He closes his eyes tight and tries again. When he opens them, that white face is still there staring at him curiously.

Alright, fine. Time to look around and see what the point of this dream was. He starts walking, immediately deciding to walk towards the owl in case it was supposed to lead him somewhere or something ( _That's how dreams go, right?_ ). The owl doesn’t move, and instead just watches him carefully as he approaches, following his movement without once changing its position, swiveling its head almost all the way around.

He runs into a spider web and sputters, shakes his head, swats the string off his face and arms with wild gestures. Afterwards, when he’s calmed down just a bit, he swipes down his clothes again in case any strand remains.

He looks back up at the owl with a tired sigh.

“Are you supposed to lead me somewhere?” Sherlock asks up to the branches above him.

The bird doesn’t move, just stares down directly at him.

And that’s when he hears it. A noise behind him from the direction he came from. A snap of a twig. A small, soft chuckle. 

“Is someone else there?” Sherlock calls out. The cicadas stop their buzzing again. The frog hops into pond and swims away. Above his head, the owl adjusts its position towards the sound, even though its face doesn’t move as it continues to stare at Sherlock.

“Why exactly are you talking to an owl?” a voice calls out. And Sherlock immediately recognizes it.

Suddenly, the air around him plummets in temperature. The now cold air against his sweat-soaked shirt makes him start to shiver violently. The cicadas pick up their noise again.

“Moriarty,” Sherlock practically seethes.

“Jim, please,” he corrects as he carefully, smoothly steps from behind one of the large black trunks. Black suit that blends into the background so that it seems his face is floating. White face with hollow, shrouded eyes.

He chuckles and indicates the owl that has now swiveled its head around to meet him, “If I’m interrupting…”

“This is a dream. I was seeing if it was going to lead me somewhere,” Sherlock tries to explain, suddenly feeling flushed at realizing how stupid he sounds. Above him, the owl flaps its wings and flies away. Great. Now he was completely alone with only Moriarty and the buzzing of the cicadas.

“Oh?” Moriarty questions simply, cocking a condescending eyebrow, “This is a dream?”

“Isn’t it?” Sherlock shivers, suddenly wishing he had on more clothes in the now frigid air. 

Moriarty strolls forward, almost floating with how smoothly he walks, hands stuffed casually in his pockets. He doesn’t seem affected by the temperature at all.

“Are you saying you dream about me?” Moriarty practically baby-talks him, grinning a shark-like smirk.

“Of course not,” Sherlock counters defensively. 

Thinking it better than to listen to his instinct to retreat, he walks forward towards Moriarty, trying to gain the upper hand. Moriarty doesn’t even slow down in his advance, and both men come to a halt mere inches away from each other. Sherlock can feel the heat from Jim’s body radiating towards his, but somehow, it isn’t friendly.

“Then what do you call this?” Moriarty growls, voice dark and low, both intimidating and seductive at the same time. Sherlock can feel Jim’s hot breath on his skin, but he puts on a blank expression, trying to hide how this is affecting him, acting cool, collective, nonchalant.

Moriarty slowly moves his face closer, so close, too close, and Sherlock flinches back at the last second. Moriarty smirks, having won this small battle.

“Must be a nightmare,” Sherlock snarls as he takes a step back to put some distance between them.

“You want nightmare?” Moriarty laughs, his eyes angry despite the scathing smile, “I’ll give you nightmare.”

Moriarty snaps his fingers. And just like that, the earth beneath Sherlock’s feet loosens and swallows him, like a hundred hands grabbing his legs and pulling down. "Wait! Moriarty!" Sherlock calls out in helplessness as his legs disappear beneath the soil. Moriarty watches calmly, almost curiously, without amusement or laughter, and somehow, that makes it worse.

Sherlock’s upper body scrambles wildly as he is sucked down. At waist level his arms push against the ground. His arms give. At stomach level his fingers and elbows scrape at the earth around him. He grabs for Moriarty’s shoe, which calmly just takes a step back just out of reach. At chest level he tries to pull himself back up, grabbing hold of a clump of grass, only to have it uproot and send him further down. At chin level he sputters at the pieces of dirt clinging to his lips, unsure of whether or not his arms are still above the soil. His tilted face looks directly into Moriarty’s black eyes and he gasps right before his face disappears beneath the dirt and he stops breathing, nothing but the sensations of the pressure surrounding his body. The dirt quickly fills his nostrils, his ears, crevices in his clothes, the edges of his eyelids.

He struggles and tries to push his way back up, but he’s just dragged down, farther, farther. His chest begins to burn from holding his breath, feeling swollen against the pressure of the soil, and he is dangerously close to involuntarily gasping. Blood pumps through his body forcibly, aggressively, strained, throbbing throughout his body. His ears pop.

Please. Please. Oh god. Not enough air. Not enough…

He thrashes wildly against the dirt, one last-ditch effort. His progress slows and the dirt settles around him, surrounding him, pressuring him, pushing against his chest.

No air. No air.

Please!

And he instinctively opens his mouth to breathe, instead, getting a mouthful of earth, damp and bitter on his tongue. Reflexively, he gags, and at the same time, the bottom of whatever he’s standing on gives way and he’s dumped out, now falling through the air. He coughs and spits out the soil and, yes! Finally! At last! Air!

But he’s still falling, spinning, coughing, and he can’t see through the dirt still clouding his eyes. He shakes his head viciously, rubs his eyes, rubs his nose. His stomach flips and turns and seems to float right out of his own body.

When he opens his eyes, everything is spinning, a whir of colors whiz through his vision, now light instead of dark. Bright blue, bright green, some white, some brown. He tries to right himself, and when he slows down enough to make out images, he can clearly see the ground so far beneath him, and he’s plummeting towards it at high speed. His body shakes defenselessly against the wind, and he can’t stop himself from flipping again, feet above head, now on his back, arms instinctively spread beside him, feet below, and now he was on his stomach again, watching his descent.

This was ridiculous. This was illogical. He was just underground, and now he was in the air. This can’t possibly be happening. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling real.

Moriarty’s face appears, semi-transparent, as if on a giant screen in front of him.

“Falling is just like flying,” he laughs, making a whistling noise similar to what Sherlock is hearing in his ears at the moment, “it’s just that there’s a more permanent destination.”

His laugh echoes as the image disappears, and Sherlock watches helplessly as the ground rushes up to meet him. The cold feeling in his stomach makes him dizzy. His limbs feel weak against the air resistance.

He's approaching the earth too quickly, not enough time to think properly. Seeing some sort of body of water, what appears to be a swamp, he angles towards it hoping to god that would lessen the impact. 

He angles in feet first just in time, and then he hits. There’s a splash, there’s water, there's a pressure surrounding him, his eyes are closed and he can’t breathe again, and he's still falling, and falling, and falling.

And then plump!

No more water surrounding him. No more pressure. Something solid beneath his hands and knees. When he finally screws his eyes open, he’s met with more darkness. Yay.

Much darker than before. So dark that he can’t see anything, so he has to investigate with his other senses.

He feels stone beneath his hands and knees, damp, puddles of water. He hears a dripping, a hollow sound, water against rock, and a louder, more profound sound of rain and wind lashing against walls. A closed space, a room. A stone room? A dungeon of sorts.

But there’s air, a breeze, and a small source of light, and, yes! There’s a window! His eyes are slowly becoming accustomed to the dark and he can see a small square on the wall above him, a patch of slightly lighter black, that indicates the outside.

The cool fresh air against his face is the first relief he’s gotten all dream. He stands and moves over to it, can feel the wind and rain spattering against the thick stone frame, and he looks outside, searching for some sort of explanation. A flash of lightning and he stumbles backwards, slightly blinded by the sudden light. He blinks. Spots on his vision. He blinks again. His eyes adjust again. Thunder in the background, a loud shaking rumble that rips through and reverberates in the entire room. 

Sherlock covers his ears with his hands and turns away from the window, splashing through another puddle, his eyes roaming the other walls, looking for refuge. And that’s when he sees it.

He isn’t alone.

The thunder stops, the sound of dripping echoes.

His first thought is that it’s Moriarty, watching him again. But the dark silhouette doesn’t move. There isn’t enough light to make it out… Maybe if he could just… The figure wasn’t moving so…

He inches closer. It remains motionless. He makes a sudden, startling movement, but the silhouette doesn’t respond.

So what? A mannequin? A pile of something in the shape of a human? Or a dead body? 

His instincts turn cold as he regards his options, knowing that, almost undoubtedly, it was the last one.

He walks towards it slowly, hand outstretched in front of him. The hollow sound of dripping reverberates on the stone. His shoes shuffle through puddles of water.

But then that’s when he sees the next disturbing thing. In the faded light, with his eyes adjusted just so, he can barely see the hand in front of his face. And there’s something wrong with it.

He brings it closer to his face, the silhouette blurred behind the focus of his hand, and he can see with the sparse light from the window that what’s on his hand is not water. It’s too dark. Almost black.

He lowers his hand slowly, eyes refocusing on the dark shape in front of him.

And then lightning flashes from the window, lighting the room brightly, giving form to the silhouette. It’s brief. But what he sees in that second makes him stumble back in horror, landing roughly on the floor.

The sound of dripping water echoes on the stone.

No, not water. Blood.

He brings his hands up. They’re covered. It’s all around him. On the floor. On his clothes.

Thunder quakes through the room again, shaking, jarring, jolting.

His whole body vibrates.

The whole room vibrates.

He worries for a moment that in the thunderous roar the stone walls are going to collapse, but they hold.

And now he can hear the cicadas.

And the frog.

Moriarty’s laugh.

And the wind. The whistle.

And the dripping. So much dripping.

Everything. All at once. Just louder. And louder. And louder. Until he can feel the sounds throughout his entire body. Noise. Just noise. Too loud. All around him.

Stop.

Stop it.

Just stop.

Lightning flashes again, painting the silhouette with light once more.

John!

Sherlock gasps awake, covered in a sheen of sweat, his head still ringing.

The silhouette. The figure on the far wall of the room.

It was John. 

On a hook.

Dangling.

Dripping blood.

Pale face framing lifeless black eyes.

He shivers to get the image out of his head, and looks over in the bed where John should be sleeping. But he isn’t there. The bed is empty.

And it is cold without his presence.

“John?” Sherlock calls, quickly ripping the sheets off and jumping from the bed, a horrible cold feeling spreading through his stomach.

He rushes through the flat. Not in the kitchen, not in the sitting room, not in the bathroom. He races up the stairs to John’s old room.

“John?” he calls, trying the door handle. It’s locked. He pounds the door. “John, are you in there?”

No response.

This makes him feel particularly uneasy, his heart hammering against his rib cage, his head feeling light and dizzy.

He runs back downstairs, searches for the key on the table where it usually stays. But of course it isn’t there.

Right, next best thing. He snatches up his lock pick kit and returns upstairs.

“John, are you in there?” he calls again as he starts on the lock, easily picking it within a couple of seconds.

When the door flies open and he looks into the room, what else would he see but John hanging on a hook in the middle of the room, blood dripping onto the unused bed.

“No!” he starts awake again, startled into a sitting position on his bed, panting, sweating.

“What’s wrong?” John mumbles beside him, sitting up and placing a hand on his upper arm, forcing his eyes open. He blinks wearily, the sleep still dragging his eyelids down.

Sherlock lets out the biggest sigh of relief and immediately pulls John into an embrace, burying his face in John’s neck.

“What is it?” John asks, confused by this sudden display of affection as he hugs Sherlock back.

Sherlock lets out another sigh and lays back down, pulling John on top of him. John tenses at first, miffed at being dragged about, but he doesn’t fight it, and soon snuggles into a better position in Sherlock’s arms.

Sherlock focuses on the feeling of John’s body against his own. The warmth, friendly and comforting, soaking in through his skin. John’s muscles, hard and reassuringly strong under Sherlock’s hands and against his chest. His calmingly rhythmic breath against Sherlock’s neck. Thank god he was alright.

He remains silent for a couple more minutes, bringing his hand up into John’s hair, his other arm wrapped firmly around John’s back, making sure that he was there and alright.

“John?” Sherlock says softly.

“Mh?” John murmurs into his neck, already falling back asleep.

He dips and tilts his head just enough to place a kiss on John’s forehead without disturbing him, and says softly “I love you.”

“Mm.” John hums in response. He nuzzles into Sherlock’s neck and mumbles against his skin, “I love you too.”

After a few beats of silence, John mumbles, “So what was it?” barely even still awake. He probably wasn’t going to remember this in the morning.

“Heh,” Sherlock huffs out a casual laugh, trying to play off his uneasiness.

He tightens his grip on John’s body once more, savoring the warmth, then slowly relaxes.

A few more moments without an answer and John’s breath evens out into a steady rhythm indicative of sleep.

Sherlock closes his eyes and whispers to the room, “Must’ve been a nightmare.”


End file.
